Daniel Bar
New member
In a recent announcement Intel made, the world’s most prominent semiconductor company promises to provide funding of 50M$ for the next 10 years on a collaborative research program with QuTech in TU-Delft (The Netherlands equivalent to MIT/Stanford) and TNO (Netherland’s “Bell Labs”). This program aims to advance quantum computation research and applications. Does that mean they have made a serious commitment to develop a quantum computer? I’ll discuss my answer to that question over this article.
For those less familiar with Quantum Computation (QC), it started to attract more interest when the renowned physics Nobel Prize laureate Richard Feynman and other influential figures were discussing the limits of conventional computers and proposed a the theoretical superiority of a quantum mechanical computer. Even back in the 1980’s Moore’s law already indicated the tremendous challenges that were ahead. Feynman discussed the challenges that would accompany electronic components and elements that are comparable in size to single atoms, where quantum effects play a very significant role. Initial propositions for the development of quantum computation components were sketched and researchers were inspired to start their journey to unexplored lands.
Skip forward about three and a half decades to the 2010's, a lot of theoretical work has been done in the academic circles. Algorithms that exploit the quantum properties of such quantum mechanical computers were developed. The present understanding is that a working quantum computer will present a complete shift in paradigm across many areas. The promises range from the ability to hack (or implement) the most advanced encryption systems, solving complex optimization problems, developing artificial intelligence, advanced machine learning, complex financial analysis, to developing tools for drug development cutting clinical trial costs and many more.
However, building such a computer is still far from easy, as there aren’t any standard components that you can put together on a breadboard and interface with an Arduino using a few jumper wires and few lines of code. It looks like we’re at the stage of the ‘vacuum tube’ of the quantum computation field. There are a few different physical approaches, namely different type of elemental building blocks – the quantum-bits (or qubits in the QC community jargon). Most major tech companies have placed their bets on at least one type of qubits.
The most notable company in the quantum computation scene is D-Wave, a Canadian company based out of Vancouver. Although there is controversy around D-Wave's quantum computer’s capabilities, they’ve received over 30M$ investment from different sources including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ private investment firm and the CIA’s investment arm. D-Wave started developing their technology over 15 years ago and sold their 1[SUP]st[/SUP] and 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] generation of quantum computers (D-Wave, and D-Wave 2) to Lockheed Martin, Google, Nasa and to the academic sector back around 2010-2013. They also rent out their own in-house quantum computer set up to clients on an hourly basis. Since then Google had hired Prof. John Martinis from UC-Santa Barbara to lead their initiative to develop their own quantum computing technology. Google even launched a free online quantum scripting playground.
To add more on the industry's interest in quantum computation technologies, as everybody know, IBM has completely ‘retired’ from the traditional semiconductors scene with the historical deal with Global-Foundries last year. IBM has been very busy branching heavily into new and adventurous ventures; one of those is quantum computation development.The IBM quantum computation initiative is part of a 5 year Cloud Computing and Big-Data program that is backed by a staggering amount of 3B$.
To complete the picture, Microsoft, HP-labs, Hitachi and others have initiated their own programs, hiring top shelf mathematicians, physicist and engineers, and pouring a lot of money into the development of quantum computation technologies as well. Intel has also initiated small scale hiring to promote their own in house quantum computation technology development.
This leaves no other conclusion but to interpret Intel’s announcement as a cautious and conservative approach toward quantum computation. 50M$ for the largest chipmaker in the world is a small if not negligible price to pay to gain access and some ownership of the leading edge developments (for comparison, 50M$ is comparable to an expensive piece of equipment in a fab).Intel surely realized quantum computation technologies are beginning to mature. They want to explore their opportunities, but, they're still not going all in.
One twist that may stimulate Intel's appetite for quantum computation technologies is the recent advancement in Silicon based qubits. Silicon qubits are among the latest that were developed. Silicon qubit technology resembles conventional silicon electronic components. The research community experienced an extremely rapid development of silicon qubit platforms taking advantage of the established silicon microfabrication techniques. Research groups around the world have been considerably funded by American defence arms (NSA, ARO, IARPA - did I mention encryption applications earlier as a leading source of interest for quantum computation applications? It was even mentioned in one of the Wikileaks cables). In the USA silicon quantum devices are mainly being studied in the defence research institutes (Sandia, HRL, NIST) and less in the academic institutes, but, around the world some very significant breakthroughs in the silicon qubit performance have been achieved by researchers from Australia, Japan, Canada, the UK, Switzerland, and last but not least the Netherlands. Perhaps silicon quantum devices would be easier to integrate when the time comes if existing hardware design language (HDL), EDA, modeling and simulation tools will be modified to suit the quantum computation era. And maybe then Intel’s board will gear up their next step in the development of quantum computation.
For those less familiar with Quantum Computation (QC), it started to attract more interest when the renowned physics Nobel Prize laureate Richard Feynman and other influential figures were discussing the limits of conventional computers and proposed a the theoretical superiority of a quantum mechanical computer. Even back in the 1980’s Moore’s law already indicated the tremendous challenges that were ahead. Feynman discussed the challenges that would accompany electronic components and elements that are comparable in size to single atoms, where quantum effects play a very significant role. Initial propositions for the development of quantum computation components were sketched and researchers were inspired to start their journey to unexplored lands.
Skip forward about three and a half decades to the 2010's, a lot of theoretical work has been done in the academic circles. Algorithms that exploit the quantum properties of such quantum mechanical computers were developed. The present understanding is that a working quantum computer will present a complete shift in paradigm across many areas. The promises range from the ability to hack (or implement) the most advanced encryption systems, solving complex optimization problems, developing artificial intelligence, advanced machine learning, complex financial analysis, to developing tools for drug development cutting clinical trial costs and many more.
However, building such a computer is still far from easy, as there aren’t any standard components that you can put together on a breadboard and interface with an Arduino using a few jumper wires and few lines of code. It looks like we’re at the stage of the ‘vacuum tube’ of the quantum computation field. There are a few different physical approaches, namely different type of elemental building blocks – the quantum-bits (or qubits in the QC community jargon). Most major tech companies have placed their bets on at least one type of qubits.
The most notable company in the quantum computation scene is D-Wave, a Canadian company based out of Vancouver. Although there is controversy around D-Wave's quantum computer’s capabilities, they’ve received over 30M$ investment from different sources including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ private investment firm and the CIA’s investment arm. D-Wave started developing their technology over 15 years ago and sold their 1[SUP]st[/SUP] and 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] generation of quantum computers (D-Wave, and D-Wave 2) to Lockheed Martin, Google, Nasa and to the academic sector back around 2010-2013. They also rent out their own in-house quantum computer set up to clients on an hourly basis. Since then Google had hired Prof. John Martinis from UC-Santa Barbara to lead their initiative to develop their own quantum computing technology. Google even launched a free online quantum scripting playground.
To add more on the industry's interest in quantum computation technologies, as everybody know, IBM has completely ‘retired’ from the traditional semiconductors scene with the historical deal with Global-Foundries last year. IBM has been very busy branching heavily into new and adventurous ventures; one of those is quantum computation development.The IBM quantum computation initiative is part of a 5 year Cloud Computing and Big-Data program that is backed by a staggering amount of 3B$.
To complete the picture, Microsoft, HP-labs, Hitachi and others have initiated their own programs, hiring top shelf mathematicians, physicist and engineers, and pouring a lot of money into the development of quantum computation technologies as well. Intel has also initiated small scale hiring to promote their own in house quantum computation technology development.
This leaves no other conclusion but to interpret Intel’s announcement as a cautious and conservative approach toward quantum computation. 50M$ for the largest chipmaker in the world is a small if not negligible price to pay to gain access and some ownership of the leading edge developments (for comparison, 50M$ is comparable to an expensive piece of equipment in a fab).Intel surely realized quantum computation technologies are beginning to mature. They want to explore their opportunities, but, they're still not going all in.
One twist that may stimulate Intel's appetite for quantum computation technologies is the recent advancement in Silicon based qubits. Silicon qubits are among the latest that were developed. Silicon qubit technology resembles conventional silicon electronic components. The research community experienced an extremely rapid development of silicon qubit platforms taking advantage of the established silicon microfabrication techniques. Research groups around the world have been considerably funded by American defence arms (NSA, ARO, IARPA - did I mention encryption applications earlier as a leading source of interest for quantum computation applications? It was even mentioned in one of the Wikileaks cables). In the USA silicon quantum devices are mainly being studied in the defence research institutes (Sandia, HRL, NIST) and less in the academic institutes, but, around the world some very significant breakthroughs in the silicon qubit performance have been achieved by researchers from Australia, Japan, Canada, the UK, Switzerland, and last but not least the Netherlands. Perhaps silicon quantum devices would be easier to integrate when the time comes if existing hardware design language (HDL), EDA, modeling and simulation tools will be modified to suit the quantum computation era. And maybe then Intel’s board will gear up their next step in the development of quantum computation.
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